Fine weather allowed this session to target young Sandwich Tern, Mediterranean Gull and Black-headed Gull at the colony on Scolt Head to go ahead, and be fitted with darvic rings, allowing data to collected without the need to recapture birds. Information on survival rates, movements and longevity will be collected by observations of interested individuals for years to come.
The planning for this day started months ago with much preparation to ensure a smooth process on the day. The Scolt Head warden selected the date based on chicks being close to fledging to maximise the chances of birds successfully leaving the colony, weather and good tides to bring the equipment and team over to the colony, also assembling a team from Natural England to support the ringers with the capture and marking efforts.
The team consisted of ringers representing Iceni Bird Monitoring Group collaborating with National Trust and Natural England personnel. All necessary permits, endorsements and permissions to carry out this work held.
Over the course of the day 323 birds were marked with darvic rings. This is the first large scale colour ringing effort for gulls and Sandwich Terns in Norfolk for several years.
The birds will be dispersing from the colony soon and sightings of birds in this project can be reported on https://iceni.shinyapps.io/sightings/ to get an immediate report history of the bird seen.
The Sandwich Terns have green darvics starting K followed by a second letter then a number in white, Mediterranean Gulls have yellow rings starting 2 followed by 3 numbers in black, and Black-headed Gulls have red rings starting 2C or 2H followed by two numbers printed in white. Full details are on the European colour ring birding website. For colour ring projects details see European colour ring birding
Totals: 323
Black-headed Gull - 112
Mediterranean Gull - 83
Sandwich Tern - 128